


A Feathered Friend in the Dark

by connerluthorkent



Category: Batman - All Media Types, Gotham (TV)
Genre: Arkham Asylum, Birthday Presents, Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Fluff and Angst, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Letters, M/M, Pining, Post-Episode: s05e11 They Did What?, Pre-Episode: s05e12 The Beginning..., Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-05
Updated: 2020-08-05
Packaged: 2021-03-06 06:47:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,934
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25719052
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/connerluthorkent/pseuds/connerluthorkent
Summary: While serving out his sentence in Arkham, Ed receives an unexpected package.
Relationships: Oswald Cobblepot/Edward Nygma
Comments: 35
Kudos: 125





	A Feathered Friend in the Dark

**Author's Note:**

> Happy belated birthday to Oswald! In honor of his birthday, I present...a short story about Ed’s birthday. XD Surely Oswald won't mind sharing, given who he gets to share it with. ;)

Ed is lying on his back, staring at the gray, water stained ceiling of his cell. As the minutes tick by, the agonized screams of his fellow inmates echoing far away down the corridor, his eyes rove up and down the cracks in the concrete, their pattern now permanently burned onto the back of his eyelids.

It’s the boredom, more than anything, that makes his skin itch. The lack of stimulation is _maddening_. Even manipulating the other inmates has become increasingly dull, offering no respite. 

The tedium of day-in, day-out of the same old, same old causes the days to bleed together, like a black-and-white reel of film on an unending loop. That swatch of colorless monotony slashes across Ed’s mind like a void, making him want to howl, rip out his hair, draw blood.

Worse, still, is the fact that there’s no end to the mind-numbing cycle in sight. 

Ed shakes the pen Dr. Quinzel gave him for letter writing loose from his sleeve, uncapping it with his teeth. 

_What’s harmless but can kill you?_ he scrawls into the white stripe looping around his left wrist.

_Time_.

The sound of the mail cart approaching disrupts his thoughts, the back left wheel emitting that familiar grating squeak with every revolution it makes. As shrill as it is, Ed can’t help but perk up slightly at the noise, excitement bubbling in his chest as his pulse begins to race. 

He tries to assuage the sudden thrill of anticipation running like electricity down his spine, anxious about getting his hopes up only to be disappointed. 

His correspondence with Oswald is...sporadic at best, and dependent on a myriad of factors, ranging from inmate politics diverting their attention to privileges being revoked for one infraction or another. 

Still, Ed can’t help the flutter of hope in his stomach every time he hears the tell-tale sound of the cart coming down the hall.

When the squeaking ceases just outside his door, the guard coming to an abrupt halt, it takes all the self-control Ed has left not to jolt into a sitting position, light up like an overeager child. He takes a breath through his nose to steady himself before peering up and out of the small, barred window at the top of his door. 

It’s that lunking meathead of a guard, Lyle Bolton, on mail duty today. He’s one of the nastier watchmen on duty, which is really quite a title to have earned here at good old Arkham Asylum. 

Ed can’t help but bare his teeth as he stares up at him, hoping the facsimile of a grin unnerves Bolton. He remains uncharastically silent, however, not in the mood for any buffonic prattle today, even at the expense of getting the rare chance to speak. 

As Bolton lifts something from the pile, Ed hears him make a surprised noise in the back of his throat. 

"Huh, I’ll be damned. _Package_ for you, Nygma," he says, the shock evident in his voice.

Though he tries not to show it, Ed’s curiosity, too, is piqued. 

A package? He never gets packages, his contact with the world outside these walls limited to Oswald alone, and their ability to exchange more than a few scrawled down words has been severely stunted by the current circumstances. 

“It’s a fucking wonder I have to be on mail duty at all,” Bolton goes on, clutching Ed’s package in one meaty fist as he stares down at the cart, “after all, only someone who belonged in here themselves would want to have _anything_ to do with a bunch of freaks like you.”

It takes everything in Ed to resist the sudden urge to snarl, charge the bars and rattle them. He’d trade the shirt off his back for the chance to get his hands around the guard’s disgustingly beefy throat, feel the life gasping out of him beneath his palms. 

“Bolton?” he says cooly instead, dark eyes studying him as he lifts a single finger in the air. “Riddle me this. The man who built me doesn’t want me. The man who bought me doesn’t need me. The man who needs me doesn’t know it. What am I?” 

Bolton sneers, spitting onto the concrete floor of Ed’s cell.

“Shut it, Nygma. Or I’ll have this,” he waves the brown box at Ed with one hand, “thrown in the incinerator.” 

The threat makes Ed’s blood boil. His jaw clenches, hands balling into fists at his sides. But his mouth snaps shut immediately, and Bolton grins viciously at him through the bars. 

He shoves the cardboard parcel roughly into the wall slot, the same one they utilize to feed inmates in lockdown, placed in self isolation in their cells. The force and carelessness with which he handles the box ends up crushing the corners slightly, and Ed all but scrambles across the room for it, reaching out desperately to catch the package before any further damage is done. 

Bolton smirks, eyes glinting maciously as he watches Ed’s mad dash. Once he’s secured the package, Ed jerks his head up to stare him dead in the eye, glaring stonily at him as he presses the brown cardboard protectively against his chest. 

Bolton shakes his head one last time, then throws back his head and laughs as he turns to make his way down the hallway. 

Ed can still hear that dark, nasty laughter echoing off the walls of the empty corridor long after the creak of the cart has faded away. 

As he crosses his cell back towards his cot, Ed wrenches the box away from his chest, eyes darting across every corner and edge as he inspects it. When he reaches the edge of his iron bedframe, he places the parcel carefully on the thin mattress, fighting down the intense urge to rip the box open in his impatience as soon as it hits the rough Arkham-issue quilt.

Instead, he kneels down beside his bed, tongue between his teeth as he runs his fingertips over the flat, cardboard surface, checking every nook and cranny for some sort of tripwire, unidentified substance, explosives. 

He’s learned to be cautious, over the years. After all, he isn’t without his fair share of enemies. Such an unexpected gesture might be meant to lure him into a false sense of security, a deadly prank or trap just waiting to be sprung beneath those innocuous cardboard edges. 

The security detail the parcel had no doubt gone through to arrive here detracts somewhat from the notion, but Arkham is nothing if not corrupt. Money slid into the right pocket went a long way towards getting most anything through the door. 

The parcel passes the first level of his inspection. In fact, all said, it’s a perfectly ordinary looking brown box. Nondescript, even, if a little large and unwieldy, with no distinct markings save Ed’s name scrawled across the top. There’s not even a return address. 

The entire presentation lacks the flare and finesse Ed might expect from a package sent to him, if the sender had the Riddler’s flashy sensibilities at all in mind.

He flips the box over, laying it flat, then uses the tip of his pen to slice open the packaging tape along the seal. He’s careful as he pulls back the cardboard flaps, mindful that the package’s unassuming nature might still prove deceiving. 

A soft gasp escapes his throat at what he finds inside.

It’s a box within a box, like a set of stacking dolls. The first flash of expensive black and gold wrapping, unmistakable and so familiar, makes Ed’s fingers tremble.

He lifts the gift delicately from it’s cardboard casing, gently depositing it on the bedspread. As he does so, a pale fold of paper cascades out alongside it, fluttering down to the floor.

"What have we here?" Ed mutters to himself, bending over and snatching up the slip between his index and middle fingers. 

He squints in the dim light as he pulls it up to his face to examine.

It's a birthday card. Simple and elegant, with a heavy cream cardstock and green watercolor balloon on the front.

Ed counts back the days and realizes it _is_ April 1st, validating his initial niggling, subconscious suspicion of a joke being played. Time really does blend together from one gray day to the next.

His birthday. He had forgotten entirely.

He flips the card open hastily, careful not to bend the edges even in his eagerness.

His eyes scan quickly to the bottom. The sign off, _Peter Humboldt_ , is written in a deliberate, looping hand, one that clashes with the rest of the script inside.

Even without the familiar pseudonym, Ed would recognize that messy scrawl anywhere. 

"Oswald."

Ed breathes his name like a prayer, clutching the card all the tighter in his hand.

He reads through the message quickly, practically devouring Oswald's words.

_My Dear Ed,_

_I hope this card finds you well. Or as well as can be expected, given our contemporary circumstances._

_I know you're not much for birthdays, but I’m extending the best of birthday wishes to you nonetheless. Let this card and your accompanying gifts serve as a reminder I was thinking of you on the day._

_My friend, please forgive the slight but necessary misdirection I’ve had to go through to facilitate this exchange. Though Arkham patients can receive gifts, sending them in my present circumstances proves a bit more challenging. As you can see, I managed to find alternative means._

_In your adjoining present, you will find some familiar, and, I hope, welcome mementos, as well as an addition. A new face among them._

_It’s possible you will find the gesture silly, or childish. Overly sentimental, even. But I thought, perhaps, you could use a...friend during your stay in Arkham._

_If nothing else, maybe it will bring a smile to your face._

_I’m looking forward to continuing our correspondence soon. In the meantime, stay safe, my friend._

_Wishing you all the best,_

_Peter Humboldt, a fellow friend in the dark_

_P.S. I’ll give you a small hint to just what lays in wait for you._

_Dapper in my natural tuxedo, on ice is where I lie. Even though I have two wings, I’m a bird that cannot fly._

_What am I?_

The riddle is juvenile, something a child could solve. Ed traces his fingers in wonder over the words anyway. 

It’s the gesture, here, that matters. 

What’s more, it still presents an enigma, as it’s greater meaning escapes him in the given circumstances. Unless Oswald himself is about to pop out of the box. 

Highly unlikely, given the size. 

"Oswald's small but not _that_ small," Ed notes aloud, amusing himself.

He glances down at Oswald’s words once more, preparing to set the card aside while he opens his present. Without thinking, he brings it up to his lips, pressing a kiss just above Oswald’s sign off.

Then he closes it and slides it carefully under his pillow for safekeeping. 

Ed takes a seat on the cot, gingerly picking up the present and placing it in his lap. As he unwraps it, he’s careful to peel up the edges of the black and gold paper as gently as possible, keeping the wrapping intact before he folds it and places it off to one side. 

The gift box underneath is a shining deep green, the exact same shade as the suit Ed most frequently adorned as the Riddler. Just the sort of pizzazz he had been longing for on his initial scrutinizing of the package, so carefully selected a longing pang rings in his chest at the sight of it. 

He lifts the lid slowly with his fingertips and then peers down inside the box. 

The buttery smell of shortbread wafts up to meet him, the tin tucked alongside a cozy green sweater. The deliberate, meticulously crafted recreation makes a wave of nostalgia overcome him, his chest aching as something warm and bright glows in his ribcage.

He reaches into the box and pinches one sleeve of the sweater, rubbing it between his fingers. The soft material feels like the highest of luxuries after months in his scratchy Arkham uniform. 

Cashmere, he realizes, as he traces his finger over the fabric. So not far from it.

Then Ed notices it. Rounded, fuzzy black material peeking up from just to the left of the sweater. 

He lifts the toy out of the box, turning it in his hands to get a better look. 

It’s a stuffed plush, black with a white belly and yellow adornments, unmistakably modeled after the emperor penguin. The deliberately chosen species, clearly meant to reflect Oswald’s own position as the proclaimed king of Gotham, makes Ed’s mouth twitch upwards in a tight-lipped smile. 

He runs his hand fondly down the toy’s sharp, orange beak, considers its pale, glassy eyes. Takes a moment to just appreciate the craftsmanship. 

Ed hasn’t had a stuffed animal since he was very, very small, hardly more than four years old when his father, in a fit of rage, destroyed the tattered Peter Rabbit Ed dragged everywhere with him. His father’s voice comes back to him even now, harsh and booming as he declared Ed’s beloved bunny a plaything for “sissies.” 

He can still vividly recall sobbing in his bed that night, sleep impossible with his steadfast companion no longer by his side. That was before the searing consistency of his father’s anger had long burned the tears from his eyes, back when he could still cry at his cruelties. 

After that, his mother never bought him a plush toy again, no matter how often or desperately he begged for one. 

In a move that takes Ed himself aback in its instinctiveness, he hugs the stuffed penguin against his chest, crushing the soft plush to his torso before he’s even had time to realize what he’s doing.

He’s surprised to find the toy feels hard where he squeezes it around the middle, a sharp, solid edge cutting into his flesh. 

Pulling it away from his chest, Ed brings the penguin up close to his face, inspecting it more carefully. 

After a moment’s consideration, he finds what he’s looking for. 

"Aha!" Ed crows in delight, his fingers brushing against the small zipper protruding from the back of the plush’s fuzzy neck. "There you are, you little bugger!"

He unzips it with a swift tug, turning up the toy to spill out whatever treasures lay inside. A few small, hand-held mechanical puzzles in different shapes slip out, all wood and seemingly hand-painted, the kind you’d find in the antique toy shops Ed had frequented often as a younger man. 

Solving them will be simple enough, but it will pass the time, give him something to occupy his mind and his hands. Even a minor diversion is a windfall from the prickling under-stimulation of Arkham. 

And Ed appreciates their old-fashioned charm. There’s a thoughtfulness to the puzzles selection, clearly carefully chosen to appeal to Ed, but with a touch of Oswald’s sensibility to them as well. That additional flourish warms Ed, his stomach fluttering pleasantly at the thought there’s something of Oswald in the gift itself. 

He feels... _touched_ , and happy, in a way he so rarely has on birthdays past. 

Throughout his life, gifts—like these and the ones Oswald had sent during his first stint at Arkham—had always come with a heavy layer of suspicion for Ed. 

There was a price to kindness he knew, a lesson that had been drilled into him time and again throughout his childhood. The image of his father smashing the Rubix cube he had given Ed for Christmas flashes before his eyes, his punishment for a test he claimed Ed had cheated on. The act a calculated, deliberate reminder that, as a child, nothing Ed had ever truly belonged to him, not really.

He had learned well under his father’s savage tutelage. Gifts were a bargaining chip, one that could be leveraged against you at any time.

So even in those early days of friendship with Oswald, Ed couldn’t help but eye the biscuits and sweaters and suits with a hint of apprehension, waiting breathlessly for the other shoe to drop. 

He feels a lump form in his throat with the realization that, after everything that has passed over the years between the two of them, he feels no similar suspicion now. 

Locked miles and miles away in his own bare, monochromatic cell, Oswald has nothing to gain from this gesture, nothing more than the hope he’s brought his friend some small bit of comfort, extended out a tiny flicker of light in the darkness for Ed to warm himself by.

The image comes to him so clearly of Oswald, in his own dreary cell, thinking of Ed, lying back as he wonders if Ed has yet received his presents, what he’ll make of them. Something bright swell up in Ed’s chest at the thought.

“Trust is so very hard to find in Gotham,” he murmurs, Oswald’s voice echoing in his head as he repeats the words, picking the plush penguin up with both hands, “but I trust _you_ , Oswald.”

His history with Oswald has a nasty page full of cruelties they’ve levelled at one another. The kind of pain and heartbreak that few bonds can weather and survive.

But Ed remembers those early days of small kindnesses extended freely. Healing bullet wounds, offering shelter, cleaning sleeves, buying wardrobes. A genuine sense of friendship and camaraderie Ed had rarely ever experienced in his life up to that point. 

There’s a small glow of hope, glimmering in his ribcage, that the sub, the six months prior to their incarceration, the increasingly hopeful letters exchanged now are an indication that they’re gradually making their way back there. That there’s still a chance their relationship can return to those exchanges of warmth that helped kindle the fire of it in the first place. 

Landing back in Arkham, having that tentatively rekindling friendship so violently snatched away, had put things in perspective. It had been far easier than he’d expected, to finally admit the sinking suspicion that had been whispering at the back of his mind incessantly for months. What started as a gentle murmur as soon as he began finding his footing back at Oswald’s side during No Man’s Land had only grown louder everyday they spent establishing a new empire together post-reunification.

All that time at each other’s sides, scheming and planning, picking right back up where they had left off and easily falling back into step with each other once more, had made something finally settle, warm and steady, underneath his skin. A knowledge he’d been denying for far too long finally coming to the forefront.

The evidence had been there, written on the wall, all along. 

A pact resealed under knife’s blade, relief surging through his chest. 

Pale green eyes blinking up at him, that sharp laugh in the air. _Maybe we really are meant for each other_ ringing dizzyingly in his ears.

The metallic tang of blood in his mouth, riddles on his lips. His spine had straightened with the knowledge he’d die before he uttered those words, gave him up to her sharp-toothed glower. 

A hallucination bathed in red light, sultry tones rising in the air. The longing in his stomach lurching so intensely, he had to rub his eyes, look away.

A grappling hand sinking into the harbor as his own heart sunk, heavy and leaden, in his chest. 

A tender look in low firelight, the air in the room seeming to freeze just before the moment passed and left his head spinning, unable to sort out the sinking feeling of disappointment pooling in his stomach.

That voice had been nagging in his ear even farther back than that, over piano duets and Chinese takeout, huddled up under his patchwork quilt.

But he had finally decided to stop fighting it and, for once, just listen.

_I’m in love with Oswald._

Breathed out, a confession across his mind.

He’s in love with Oswald. 

Has been for so long that, even with the precision of his eidetic memory, he can never pinpoint the exact moment, forever failing to untangle the intricate web he and Oswald have weaved so tightly around themselves to trace back to that origin point, the precise instant he fell. 

Dr. Quinzel had practically clapped, the one and only time he’d formed the words in their one-on-one therapy sessions, albeit in his usual form of wordplay.

“And what is the nature of your relationship to Mr. Cobblepot?” she’d asked, glancing up surreptitiously from her chart.

Faced with the question, he’d found, suddenly, he couldn't lie. The familiar riddle spilled from his lips automatically.

_I can’t be bought, but I can be stolen with a glance. I’m worthless to one, but priceless to two. What am I?_

"Love," she’d answered with a smile.

He'd replied with a sharp nod of his head.

She said it was progress, admitting it to himself, saying it outloud. A step forward that could help anchor him, begin the process of working through some of his other “unresolved emotional issues.”

He’d refrained from spitting that he had no interest in parsing through any of his other “emotional issues,” thank you very much, but only just. 

Dr. Quinzel was kind, after all, and well-intentioned. He doubted any of the other Arkham personnel would have shared her enthusiasm for his personal revelation. And there was a glint to her bright blue eyes that Ed thought he recognized, a spark that made him inclined to respect her, if nothing else.

Moreover, he couldn’t dispute the sentiment of what she’d said entirely. Admitting what he felt, to her and to himself, just sitting with the knowledge, _did_ make him feel as if a crushing weight had been lifted off his chest at long last. 

It was the missing piece, slotting perfectly into place. The only thing that made the whole puzzle make sense.

Ed finds it a comfort, on those long, lonely Arkham nights, even as it makes him ache. 

...He _hasn’t_ said anything to Oswald, not yet. It doesn’t seem right, to make that kind of upending proclamation via a prison letter.

But he hopes, when ithappens, that the confession brings Oswald even a modicum of the comfort his letters, gifts, and companionship have brought to Ed. 

...That is, if they _do_ ever see each other again. 

For now, though, he puts that thought aside. Rather than dwelling, he methodically tucks his presents momentarily away and takes up his pen, pulling a few loose sheets of paper out from under his mattress. As he begins formulating his reply, his mind whizzes, already plotting just what he’ll do for Oswald’s birthday, to return his sweet gesture in kind. 

  


It’s long after nightfall when he finally beds down to sleep, the cashmere sweater soft around his shoulders. 

A little black and gold origami penguin sits on the floor beneath Ed’s iron bed, sheltered between the folds of his birthday card, just out of sight. His twin is tucked far away, hidden in a dresser drawer at the Van Dahl mansion, on the outskirts of the city. 

Ed rolls over to face the wall, his toy penguin tucked protectively in the circle of his arms, shielded from the prying gaze of inmate and guard alike. 

"Goodnight, Mr. Penguin," Ed whispers into the dark. 

And as he hugs the plush tight to his chest, he drifts into the first peaceful sleep he’s had in weeks. 

**Author's Note:**

> The answer to Ed's riddle to Bolton, for those curious, is “a coffin.” 
> 
> As always, any and all comments, kudos, and general squee is treasured and encouraged!! I always love getting to hear what you guys think. <3


End file.
